Sibelius: Symphony No. 2; Pohjola's Daughter

"Thirty years after his Boston Symphony Orchestra recording of the Second Symphony - long regarded as a benchmark in this work - his enquiring mind is still finding subtly new ways of guiding listeners through the composer's musical logic. Here there was a real feeling of progression from the fragmentary motifs of the opening movement to the climatic 'big tune' of the finale"

"The life-and-death struggle of the second movement is underlined by two alternating tempi which Davis has not contrasted so dramatically before, not even in the quicker concert performance in Dresden. Strong rhythmic underpinnings in the Scherzo, the highly contrasted trio and their eventual assimilation into the mighty onrush towards the finale: these all have a distinctively Beethovenian cast. The finale’s jubilations justify their length and splendour, just about, with some generous portamento and care over the recitatives of the central, quieter section."